Several Rosie team members are dedicated specifically to ensuring the success of the independent retailers who partner with us. From our diligent support team to the experts on onboarding, we prioritize giving our customers an unparalleled experience so they can serve their online shoppers. Dave Makar, Chief Customer Officer, is the leader of Rosie’s Customer Success department, which is responsible for this important task and more. To learn more about his integral role in the company and demystify Customer Success, we went straight to the source and talked with Dave.
You recently celebrated your 6th year with Rosie – congratulations! Your first role was in marketing and now you lead several key departments as Chief Customer Officer. How has Rosie grown as a company since you started and what makes you excited for the future?
I joined Rosie because I was closely aligned with the vision: to be the most trusted, locally focused ecommerce company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online from local stores. At Rosie, through the growth in the last 5 years, we now positively impact millions of people a year with our software – from online guests and families, to retailers and personal shoppers.
I’m most excited about the incredible software Rosie has developed and the team Rosie has assembled. Rosie creates enterprise level software for small to medium sized businesses. It’s a perfect fit for our retailer customers and it’s affordable – which is a big challenge to achieve. This team is highly organized and brilliant throughout the organization.
As CCO, you lead the Customer Success team. In a few sentences, what is Customer Success?
Customer success is the focus of Rosie’s business: ensuring the achievement of the goals of retailers and the online shoppers using the platform. We can measure the performance of the Customer Success department by how quickly and easily it is for retailers and their online guests to use our platform to sell groceries, place orders, and receive their items through delivery and pickup.
Within Customer Success are a couple of key departments. Our support is 7 days a week, so customers can get assistance by phone, chat, or email.. Retailer onboarding provides new stores with an ecommerce grocery expert to help them swiftly master the software and configure the platform. Account Management is the key to long term retailer success, guiding retailers to reach new levels of achievement with efficient use of Rosie and all of the great operational best practices we’ve developed over the last 8 years. Finally, our CPG Brand team helps our supplier and CPG customers reach new customers while offering incentives to shoppers and additional revenue to retailers. This is a great example of our win-win-win philosophy.
How does Customer Success ladder up to Rosie’s mission at large?
Rosie’s ultimate mission is to offer our retailer partners the ecommerce pricing strategies, hyperlocality, and innovation. Customer success is directly involved in the many steps of helping retailers own the last mile, transform their businesses, and deliver delight. This makes us fully integrated within the company’s mission.
In your meetings, you always try to engage team members with thoughtful questions, team building exercises, and friendly competitions. What is your philosophy for bringing your team together?
I remember being at a startup a long time ago when I was first starting my career and seeing people fall asleep in meetings. I realized just because someone is speaking and leading a meeting, it doesn’t mean their audience is engaged.
I like having our team think about how their work ties into the company and encouraging them to participate. I learned from listening to leadership author John Maxwell that people learn and are more engaged when they have fun. So whether it’s trivial or silly, when people are entertained during meetings, they’re learning and making improvements. If I can accomplish those things when I get everyone together, then it’s successful.
Finally, the favorite question: what do you have in your Rosie cart?
I have a 9 year old daughter, so hot dogs, hamburgers, boxed mac and cheese, and definitely Lunchables are in the cart. Also, items Rosie has been promoting through shopper marketing like Dunkin’ cereal from the recent Post Consumer campaign. Finally, I shop at P&C Fresh here in Ithaca, which was the first store on the Rosie platform. They offer a lot of local products so I have bread from Ithaca Bakery, coffee from Ithaca Coffee Company, and milk from Ithaca Milk. If it has Ithaca in it, it’s probably in my cart.
